Geopolymer cement and Geopolymer Concrete

Geopolymer cement is often mixed up with alkali-activated slag developed since 1956 in Eastern Europe by G.V. Glukhovsky. Alkali-activation, which is generally performed with corrosive chemicals (see below User-friendly), is used for the making of concretes exclusively. The alkali-activated materials are not manufactured separately and not sold to third parties as commercial cements. On the opposite, geopolymer technology was from the start aimed at manufacturing binders and cements for various types of applications.

In this section we are developing:
a) The recent industrial development of geopolymer concrete (100,000 tonnes and +)
b) The User-friendly geopolymer cement concept.

100,000 tonnes of Geopolymer Concrete for Airport + Eco-building

Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport (BWWA), Toowoomba, Queensland, is Australia’s first greenfield public airport to be built in 48 years. BWWA became fully operational with commercial flights operated by Qantas Link in November 2014. See our News dated of October 14, 2014, 70,000 tonnes Geopolymer Concrete for airport.

This project marks a very significant milestone in engineering – the world’s largest geopolymer concrete project. BWWA was built with approximately 40,000 m3 (100,000 tonnes) of geopolymer concrete making it the largest application of this new class of concrete in the world. The geopolymer concrete developed by the company Wagners, known as Earth Friendly Concrete (EFC), was found to be well suited for this construction method due to its high flexural tensile strength, low shrinkage and workability characteristics. Heavy duty geopolymer concrete, 435 mm thick, used for the turning node, apron and taxiway aircraft pavements, welcomes a heavy 747 cargo for regular air traffic between Toowoomba-Wellcamp BWWA airport and Hong Kong. For technical details read the paper by Glasby et al. (2015), EFC Geopolymer Concrete Aircraft Pavements at Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport, in our Library, Technical paper #23 GP-AIRPORT. Technical Paper on Geopolymer Aircraft Pavement